Statement in response to the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers - Scottish Human Rights Commission

[IwantToRetire]

The Supreme Court judgment will impact on a range of law and policy outwith the Equality Act 2010. This will include, but is not limited to, considerations around police searches, workplace health and safety requirements, single-sex accommodations in prisons and healthcare, and access to domestic violence refuges. To mitigate the risk of retrogression – rolling back on rights protections - the Scottish Government should immediately conduct an audit of these areas of law and policy and must take a human rights-based approach to reviewing them.

In our conversations with legal and academic experts, we heard a clear and universal concern about the risks to rights following the judgment. To mitigate risks, duty-bearers must put in place practical policies which consider a range of possible scenarios and reflect human rights requirements and other legal obligations with respect to all groups of rights-holders. Policymaking should take a comprehensive and context-based approach which aims to foresee and mitigate risks and to proactively protect rights. Without clear policies, decisions about, for example, how and when to accommodate individuals in services cannot be made consistently or with sufficient consideration of the issues and legal obligations at play. Nor can rights-holders expect to have a clear understanding of how their rights should be protected, or how complaints arising from practice should be addressed. This is a risk both to rights and to the ability of individuals to seek appropriate redress.

The urgency of this matter has been highlighted by a range of international human rights experts: including the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, who has cautioned against a further "pause" by the Scottish Government. Similarly, in a statement on May 22 2025, a group of independent human rights experts to the UN issued a statement which urged "UK lawmakers to act decisively to reform and align the legal framework in a way that ensures dignity, equality, and non-discrimination for all.”

Human rights of different groups should not be seen as mutually exclusive or a zero- sum game. Human rights are about more than the letter of the law; they should uphold dignity and humanity. The international human rights framework recognises that not all rights are absolute, and that there is often a need to strike a careful balance between the needs of different groups. The Scottish Human Rights Commission echoes these calls of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe and others for a balanced, reasonable and nuanced approach

Just a few paragraphs from a longer document at https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/media/3044/positionstatement-policy-sexandgender-11082025.pdf

I saw this mentioned in a news paper article today, but it isn't listed on SHRC so not sure of the date. And only found the statement on the web site by chance

If there is already a thread, please post link - thanks!

Fuck me, can they waffle any more?!

Just DO IT! Follow the law, the wishes of the vast majority, and common sense, ffs!

To mitigate the risk of retrogression – rolling back on rights protections - the Scottish Government should immediately conduct an audit of these areas of law and policy and must take a human rights-based approach to reviewing them.

In our conversations with legal and academic experts, we heard a clear and universal concern about the risks to rights following the judgment. To mitigate risks, duty-bearers must put in place practical policies which consider a range of possible scenarios and reflect human rights requirements and other legal obligations with respect to all groups of rights-holders.

ie women's rights should always to malleable and not absolute.

'Policymaking should take a comprehensive and context-based approach which aims to foresee and mitigate risks and to proactively protect rights.'

Yes it should. But instead it took away women's rights without as much as a second thought, resulting in ' retrogression – rolling back on rights protections' for half the population.
So it's a bit late now, Scottish Human Rights Commission, to start worrying about mitigating risks' and 'proactively protecting rights'.

'Human rights of different groups should not be seen as mutually exclusive or a zero- sum game'.
But sometimes they are mutually exclusive, and that is necessary and acceptable, just as 'discrimination' is only negative if it is unfair discrimination.

I don't think they've really got the hang of this 'human rights' thing at all...

It’s clear in the rest of that paragraph that they understand that perfectly well:
Human rights of different groups should not be seen as mutually exclusive or a zero- sum game.
and then a sentence later
The international human rights framework recognises that not all rights are absolute, and that there is often a need to strike a careful balance between the needs of different groups.

So in fact rights are often mutually exclusive and the needs of different groups need to be balanced. The Supreme Court has laid out how current law requires this to be done. People who disagree with current law should campaign for it to be changed, much like the democratic process that created the various bits of legislation which ultimately fed into the Equality Act.

No doubt they issued a similar statement when women’s rights to single sex spaces were being ignored? Or are women’s rights not human rights?

And is this an admission to the clash between women’s rights and trans demands? I thought the party line is that there is no clash.

I have been on these boards for years and this is the most clearly I have ever seen it put.

They are admitting it right there in the text.

Ha, you beat me to it. I was losing the will to live trying to figure out what they're actually trying to say there. Was there anything in it that made a point? If so I completely missed it.

"all groups of rights-holders." That's everybody then. Everybody has rights.

To mitigate the risk of retrogression – rolling back on rights protections - the Scottish Government should immediately conduct an audit of these areas of law and policy and must take a human rights-based approach to reviewing them.

So does that mean:

"Trans rights are human rights and trump all others! We will follow some of the UN dictats and ignore the Supreme Court ruling on the EA201." ?

The Supreme Court judgment will impact on a range of law and policy outwith the Equality Act 2010. This will include, but is not limited to, considerations around police searches, workplace health and safety requirements, single-sex accommodations in prisons and healthcare, and access to domestic violence refuges.

Ha, so they admit the SC ruling does have wide ranging impact beyond the Equality Act.

The Supreme Court judgment will impact on a range of law and policy outwith the Equality Act 2010. This will include, but is not limited to, considerations around police searches, workplace health and safety requirements, single-sex accommodations in prisons and healthcare, and access to domestic violence refuges.

Well.

This is interesting even if there's feet dragging going on.

Why?

Because one of the arguments a certain lawyer tried to make in a certain employment tribunal was that the SC ruling didn't impact on much and certainly not that long list of things.

So this rather undermines her position ahead of the summing up session next month.

How unfortunate.

No you are mistaken. It only effects the representation of women on public boards.🙄

Pah, no-one ever mentions that nowadays.

No wonder AI is so crap when it scrapes up all this waffle.

Yeah, I think that’s probably what they wanted to happen.

Late in 2025, it dawned on governments and human rights organisations that contrary to what they'd been led to believe, female humans were, in fact, people.

Despite their great reluctance they finally started to consider that these female creatures would also, in fact, as people, be entitled to the 'rights' previously afforded only to the normal people, and even those special rights that had been urgently and copiously afforded to normals who were keen on using the females to make themselves feel good or better.

Furthermore, and most disturbingly, they were forced to concede that women were permitted to say 'no' to men, even when these men were very upset.

Chaos ensued. Owen Jones turned purple. The Guardian went bilious. Government lawyers gnashed.

Women everywhere rolled their eyes.

That's how I understand it, certainly.

It’s a shame they weren’t so diligent when they were whipping our rights away willy nilly.